Is this the same place?

Is this the same place?

CHRISTINA DANIELS



As a child, a teenager and then a young adult, for me Bangalore was never just a city. It was a way of life. I miss the changing landscape of my city, the loss of beauty and old world charm.
Even as I welcome new Bangalore, I also remember another way of being in the not too distant past.
I remember
When mornings and afternoons were lazy and evenings long.
When Cubbon Park was the best place for candy floss and most kids knew it.
When kids still cycled to school and played on the street, without their parents worrying about them being run over.
When there were fewer one-ways, but roads seemed strangely wider.
When the approach to MG Road was strewn with the Gulmohar flowers - and you revelled in it.
When Plaza, Blumoon and Blue Diamond stood in a row.
When Symphony was an ‘also ran’ and Lido was the only theatre with a lawn.
When boys in school visited Imperial - a theatre that screened soft porn films - and not a petrol pump.
When popcorn and Pepsi at the movies was still an inexpensive thing that school kids could do.
When Victoria still stood and Udyavan served tea under banyan trees.
When Indian Coffee House, Lake View and Premier Bookshop brushed shoulders with a boulevard.
When most people your age knew that the Beatles and Scorpions were not insects And when radio still played ‘music’.
When you had one TV channel, but still found programmes that you could watch.
When people still jived in the parties at Bangalore East and not at classes at Alliance Francaise.
When being a Bangalore biker was still a fun thing to be.
When Indiranagar and Koramangala were upper crust residential localities, not commercial hubs connected by the Ring Road.
When you could ride to Bellendur Lake to chill out and it did not smell.
When the British Council was above Koshy’s, and people still visited the Central Library to read.
When afternoon discos appeared and disappeared - without the moral police breathing down your neck. When autorickshaw drivers did not demand one-anda-half after nine.
When you travelled by train to White Field on your picnics.
When the approach to Trinity Road was just a road and did not stir within you a wild nostalgia every time you rode past because it still resembled the Bangalore you knew.
When the best career that you could make in Bangalore was not in the IT industry. When to be ‘Bangalorean’ still had a certain way of life associated with it. When you knew you were Bangalorean and were proud of it.
The writer is manager Channel W, Wipro’s intranet portal. She has also authored the book Ginger Lemon Soda Pop